down under a hundred. back up over a hundred. there is a little skiddishness in the market for the first time this year. >> peter, are these our gains for the year? have we already had them? >> i suspect, close to 50% of gains for the year already which means going from here on out, we will probably see more heightened volatility. less conviction. and a degree of caution as a result of what's going on in washington. weaker earnings. stagnating economic data and concern over eurozone. >> steve, do you agree with peter? >>? part. i agree that the market has slowed down here. we add very, very abrupt move up at the beginning of the year. sentiment got very, very positive. and so that created a us is septemberbility to negative news and and we got a rash of negative news out of peer yop between the spanish campaign finance scandal and continued rioting in greece. that made people unsteady here but the underlying theme

continues to be interest rates are zero and zero interest rates are a great stock market flotation device as long as monetary policy stayes this stimulative, we will see higher and higher stock prices. >> steve, what can be the wild card this year? >> well, the wild card could be a change in monetary policy o or at least a conversation from central bankers that indicates that. so if we start to see employment improve and see signs of inflation. signs of gdp growth and in excess of 2.5, 3%. and we start hearing rumblings, either from draghi or bernanke. i don't think we will hear it from the japanese. those characters say, we are toward pull the punch bowl, stocks will come in quickly on the basis of that mutterings coming out of central bankers. but if it is pedal to the metal, we can see the stock indies es

up very easily with this accommodation. >> peter, i like quizes, so i will give you one right now. i will call it a. quiz because i'm coming up with it right if you. what is more important for the stock market, a, apple. b, europe. or c, something else. >> c, something else. >> what is that? >> we have taken apple into account. the something else is the broader economic story and very specifically to what steve said, monetary policy. that really is the driver, the liquidity tweeg booeg provided by central banks, not just domestically but around the world have given the markets, pulling that out would be very, very detrimental to equity performance. that said, i don't think we are in danger of seeing that within the next two quarters primarily because of the weakness we saw in productivity and gdp in q4 of 12. >> steven, peter, gentlemen as always, thank you. >> thank you. >> on deck, speaking of apple. is the company hording cash?

well, maybe. but wait until you see five companies we pulled o ut that have more cash as percentage of their business and even old fruit company. >> and prepping for a winter storm here in the northeast, we could be getting anywhere from zero inches to two feet of snow. why the forecast for this storm so vague and so far apart. we will ask the weather channel, next. is streamline their process? at fidelity, we do it by merging two tools into one. combining your customized charts with leading-edge analysis tools from recognia so you can quickly spot key trends and possible entry and exit points. we like this idea so much that we've applied for a patent. i'm colin beck of fidelity investments. our integrated technical analysis is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account.

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etfs, more than anybody else. beth is here from charles schwab. free is a very good word. why is this different from companies like fidelity? >> what schwab set out to do is have a list so our investors and advisors had a choice in any type of etf in any category they would want. we have more morningstar categories and five leading providers to round out the plat storm including the schwab etfs. >> so you came a little late to the party so i guess you are coming out swinging with the free products. but if there is no commission. if it is free, how do you make your money? >> this is an economic ape raen jment so they pay us a fee to wave the commission and that helps offset costs and schwab is making an investment in the marketing and as assets grow

into the funds then the clients will benefit with the range but so will the provider and so will schwab. >> is important news and interesting news but i also want to ask but commissioners in general, beth, because while you're on the etf platform, trading costs have gone like this the last year and it is great for our viewers. >> yeah. >> how low can costs and conditions really go? >> i don't think anybody knows the answer to that. but we are listening to investors. >> you will have to pay me. >> discount card. where do you go from free? if anybody jumps on barred. you are all offering a broad range of product that are free, what more can you do to entice them? it is competitive space. >> at schwab, there are lots of different product that we offer investors so we are listening and continues to challenge areas of the market and clients respond by coming to schwab and we have more business, which is good for schwab.

>> the other reason we asked you on is that we have talked on this program a lot about inflows. all of that money coming out from grandma's mattress back into the market is -- 77 billion in january, across equity funds and etfs. what do you see? how much inflow do you see of new money? >> over the last several months, people have been reengaging in the market. we have seen flows into international equity, into sector, and investors and advisors and reengaging in with the market and this is in particular with respect to etfs. as we get to a spot of a more normal market environment. >> do you feel they are going more towards etfs than mutual funds because one reason is bob pisani has been hot on this issue is expense ratios are dropping. >> right. we have seen strong flows into mutual funds. almost a record of year last year so i think some advisors and investors are getting into more active managements but we have seen strong flows into etfs

as well, which are index tracking products and people use those for different reasons. >> beth, good to have you. thanks for coming. >> thank for having me. >> i wish i add grandpa with a mattress stuffed with cash. how many grandpas really do have mattresses stuffed with cash? >> not enough. >> and i would want them in dollars. a forecast left fuzzy. we are wondering if we will see no snow or three feet of snow. we are looking on the floor of the newsroom. let's get answeres from weather chan's paul goodloe. paul, why is this system in particular so hard it nail down? >> we think we have it nailed down here at weather channel. but over all in terms of snow, you have to remember that when you talk about between say two inches of snow and 32 inches of snow, you know, it is a fine line of how much snow actually does fall. think about it. if you have a quarter inch of rain versus two and half inches,

all you know is it rained. but you convert to snow. go from two to three inches of snow to 24, 36 inches of snow. so you know, it is a fine line when you talk about snow fall amounts. we do know the big bull's eye will be in the boston area and around that area and this is the reason why it is getting tricky. we have two storms we are tracking. one, given sizeable snow across the great lakes combine that with energy from a storm giving thunderstorms and severe weather across the south. both of those meeting up and merging and forming a new storm off the coast as we head throughout the day on friday. so again, here is our first snow system. our clipper coming across into the northeast tomorrow morning. new york cite, we could see snow to start. then change over to rain and crash hard to snow as we have energy from both systems forming a new low, a nor'easter off-shore. and in this position, this storm can really crank on. now in new york city, southern

end of the storm. maybe three to six, maybe two to four but places like philadelphia, d.c., you will see snow. nothing in terms of shutting your cities down at all. but then we start heading on towards boston. not just a friday night event. boston is starting friday night and continues into saturday morning. into saturday night. and potentially if this low slows down, which we are thinking it actually might start to do late on saturday, we could see the snow continue saturday into sunday as well. so we have some perhaps historic snow fall totals on our map here but we could up the numbers if we get a long can duration of events. like i said, boston, you're the bull's eye. on the low end a foot of snow. on the high end, maybe two, maybe more feet of snow in the boston area. >> paul, we don't acknowledge as the world outside of the new york city area. that said, what are risks. i'm looking at national weather service. wlart risks that this gets up high, upgraded into the new york city area. is there a chance we get

absolutely dumb 7abs dumped on here? >> well, we see six inches. six inches is somewhat doable in new york city. at 12 and above, that's when things bog down. i even heard mayor bloomberg talk about this before. this is happening on a friday. the bulk of it on friday. but it is all about if that storm slows down, that's when we could take this number and push it back up. so that's the timing. again, timing on that is if the storm slows down into the sudden daytime frame and that means the tail end of the storm, rock land, rochester, put numb, that's when it goes up and up. you already have two feet, what's another foot, right? but with sizeable snow versus a damaging crippling snow, in terms of infrastructure, new york city is still on that time line. you will gome snow but the bull aeye that we have nailed

down, we are almost sure we will see a sizeable snowstorm across areas of new england. >> well, good for the ski resorts, right? they have add pretty light snow season in this part of the world. if can you get to the mountain. >> if you can get there. why does everybody say good news heading into the weekend? because i would love to be forced to be home for the weekend and not miss four or five days of work? i love my job. >> the revolving door for spies. >> while boeing says everything is fine, thank you, what's the worst case scenario for the company and its investors? we will find out, coming up. what's next?

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see your doctor, and for a 30-day free trial, go to axiron.com. a big development in the boeing dreamliner investigation. let's go to phil lebeau. >> this is something we have not seen in at least three weeks. 787 dreamliner touching down. a one-time ferry flight, repositioning this dreamliner. it was being painted in ft. worth, texas. they were bringing it back to the boeing facility in everett, washington. uneventful flight. this was an test flight. this was a ferry flight, repositioning the dreamliner. as this plane was enroute the

ntsb held its latest update regarding the battery investigation. they make it very clear. while they are close to figuring out exactly what caused this fire, they have not yet gotten to that point with the lithium ion battery but they did raise serious questions about the certification process and whether or not boeing and faa asked all the right questions about the potential safety hazards involving the lithium ion batteries. here is the ntsb chairman. >> we want to understand what was different in the testing that they did then. what happened in service. and what is different about some of the tests that are being conducted now post event to look at the battery and also look at potential failure modes in the battery and abuse of the battery. >> again, ntsb hasn't determined exactly what caused short circuiting within one cell within the lithium ion battery which then sparked the fire on the plane. but look at the shares of boeing p. spiking higher at the beginning of the ntsb press conference.

now back over $77 a share, guys. so this is one of the stories where it is going to go on for a while, but it is clear, investors have confidence that boeing will eventually get this worked out and the production schedule will not be impacted. >> i'm glad you mentioned that and we brought up the chart today about boeing shares, phil. we were looking back to the bad news about when the 787 dreamliner started coming out. we are almost back to the peaks. we are about three bucks higher than the day it was grounded. there was a lot about the way investors can shrug off bad news and look to the future. >> if you talk with all of analysts, almost every one says the potential is enormous in terms of what can go wrong here. but their belief at this point from their discussions with boeing from their knowledge of boeing, is that boeing will eventually get this resolved and not have to change the production schedule. that is one reason why this stock is held up. >> of course, if they are given any reason to not have confidence, i dent like to think

what would happen to the shares then, very quickly on the aviation sector. i will ask about report. american airlines and us airways getting closer and closer to a deal and sealed within a few weeks? >> yes. and i have confirmed this to people working on this deal. i think next week in which report indicate there could be a deal, that's optimistic. there is a deadline for nondisclosure agreement with creditors next week. that can always be extended in bankruptcy court. we are likely looking at something within the next couple weeks. but it is 90% baked and what we will see is the largest airline and it will surpass united in terms of size at $10 billion approximately stock deal. doug parker, current ceo of us airways, he would likely be or he will be the ceo of the merged airline, tom horton runs american would likely be moved into an executive chairman role. but not a huge power role. this is an airline run by doug parker. this is us airways.

continuing to move higher. we have seen this over the last year as people see the consolidation game. not played out yet. that's why the shares continuing moving higher. >> so would american live on? u.s. air, the name -- >> it would be american. the brand is just far too powerful on a global basis especially. that's what you have it look at here. this is all about global aeration game. it is nice to talk about what it means for americans in the u.s. at the end of the day, this is all about having the size on a global basis. >> they should change it to people's express, western piedmont, eastern. >> i'm sure that would go over well with those back -- >> you raised a good point. who is left to merge after this? is this the last of the mega mergers in the aviation world? >> well, what we are eventually moving towards is what happens if we ever get to the point where you see cross border international mergers. almost every country has said no, we don't want to have foreign ownership on a majority

level. can you have 25% stake of one airline here in the united states if you are a foreign carrier. that is the next shoe to fall if it falles. but we are a long wayes from that. >> quantis american space. >> no, the kangaroo flies alone. >> a scheduled hearing begins in a few minutes. eamon javers takes a look at the three-year stint in the private sector. a revolving door of a bit of spyes. what did you find out? >> a lot written about john brennan and what he has done in government. but we looked at late 2005 to early 2009. went to work for a small intelligence contractor here in a suburban virginia area jouust

outside washington. the analysis corporation was bind parent entity based in britain and had offices around the world. this parent entity was a security company and they were doing security services for the u.s. military in baghdad and throughout iraq. at the same time they had an office in beijing and they are approaching chinese government owned companies for he is chiropractority work in iraq as well. at the same time, this company was working for the americans in iraq and looking for contracts in beijing from the chinese government and it is the subsidiary here in the washington area employed john brennan. future nominee to be the head of the cia. an interesting mix of global intelligence one former employee of the company called that a huge conflict of interest a in this person's opinion. and the other thing we found here is we found out who john brennan's boss was before he started working for barack obama and it was this man, man named damian pearl. we add picture here.

the ceo of global strategies group. he is the man that brennan reported to in h hierarchy. pearl is a former british marine and he made most of his fortune working in iraq in the security business doing the gun webs gates and gerkas business in iraq. this is john brennan's boss before he started working for barack obama, guys? thz sounds like juicy 007. a little bit cloak and dagger. but at the same time, there is nothing to suggest anything inappropriate was going on here. >> that's right. we should underscore that. i didn't talk to anybody who suggested that john brennan ever did anything inappropriate while in the private sector. i did talk to several people who questioned sort of why we need this private intelligence structure in any case. why do we have global private security firms operating in beijing and washington and baghdad at the same time? and this is an entirely tax-payer fueled entity. >> eamon, you know the answer to

that. the way that the u.s. army can say, we don't have operatives in south america. they didn't but they were paying mercenaries to be down there. >> yeah, look, a lot of this is is done in a very hidden way. very merurky world. we had so sift through record to find the corporate structure to find out the global strategies group for example, registered in luxembourg, not england. there are subsidiaries of sun sid arearies. it is hard to keep track of them and they are easily lost in the shuffle. that might be an advantage, right, if you're in the intelligence game? >> sounds fascinating and for fewers, can you read eamon's full report on cnbc.com. >> let's get a storm-related market flash from josh lipton. >> hey, brian. down day but there are names in the green and one of them is the generator maker, generac. they got a bounce from hurricane sandy and it is up again ahead of the storm barreling towards

us here in the northeast. generac up just about 1%. >> thanks. now the fashion police, recording the worst fashion faux pas ever. >> and this could be signaling the beginning of the end for facebook.

welcome back to "street signs." a breaking development in the battle between david einhorn and apple. earlier today david einhorn told us he was suing apple and vote against a proposal in the proxy that would eliminate apple's ability toish 50u preferred stock. it is so-called proposal number two in apple's proxy. calpers, california public retirees association, i roent read the whole thing within just the headline. they fully support apple. on the other side of david einhorn, proposal number two, significantly strengthens shareholder rights and deserves

full support. guys this whole thing starting really because david einhorn unsatisfied with the way apple is distributing the cash that it has, some $137 billion. sew wants them to issue preferred stock that would pay a dividend. calpers saying we want app toll go ahead and eliminate that proposal. so, this battle is just gotten juicier. >> it is kind of interesting. we will talk more about this later on this the show, scotty, about companies hoarding a lot of cash and more of this coercion or activism, if you like. but i'm interested in the fact that apple stock hasn't moved more on all of this, don't you think? >> well, it moved initially on einhorn's comment. not that much. but he has an uphill battle. trying to convince the share holders to vote against this proposal number two is seen by many people to be an uphill battle. so you know, it remains to be seen as to whether anything will

actually happen, which is probably why you haven't seen a more significant move in the stock price. >> we have mr. herb greenburg with us as well, scott. listen, david einhorn is a powerful guy, a smart guy. tends to be right more than he is wrong. as big as he is, he is not nearly big fluff to push around apple though. calpers, maybe. >> what do you do when you have that much cash? i thought that was gutsy of david to do that. >> his whole thing is, let's help investors. >> but is it his role to sue them to unleash that pitch? >> he obviously thinks it is. >> that's right. and sometimes he's right aeb sometimes he's wrong. >> well, if they don't unleash it themselves, maybe they need a helping hand. a dividend hike or various way dose give cash back. we also want to bring you in on topic of green mountain coffee roasters. david einhorn is keeping a short on green mountain. he said that again on cnbc this morning. >> he said there is potential channel stuffing there.

yesterday, after the call, this is supposed to be a blow out quarter. that's is what is so surprising here. when you see how the company may its numbers, a -- >> that's what he said. a very poor quality -- >> did he? >> yes. >> i didn't hear it. that's the way he made the numbers. but the other thing to pay attention to here is what the new ceo said on the earnings call. very bottom of the conference mentioning strategic review. he is engaged in strategic review here. it'll take more time, he said. when you hear the words strategic review, what does it really mean? >> do you believe the starbucks, the nestle product, finally eating into green mountain's growth? coffee growth was moderating. overall, or their coffee market? >> over all. the entire market i think have you much more saturation of competition. i think that's is significant. they believe they will take more share but if they take more share, what share do they take from the margin front?

that an important question. on the margin front. one other quick thing. herbalife. the company is interesting. stocks up and down all day. because the company first came out and had additional details they put in annual statement of compensation. trying to shed more light on what they are, you know, who is doing what. all right. at the same time, bill ackman came out -- >> 40 list of questions. >> no. >> why are there atm machines in mexico. >> no, 40 pages, 240 plus questions. originally people have questions, they should ask them, so he decided to post it on his website. >> are you surprised he is drawn into herbalife? >> no. if indicationed were he was shorted -- >> he wanted confirmation whether he was still short, basically. >> but he won't talk about it. he hasn't said he shorted --

>> with scott and mandy -- >> scott did a great job. >> sorry, my friend. we have so swap you out for a better looking younger model. >> no one better looking than herb. >> out with the ford ltd and in with the jaguar. >> oh, that's just -- >> i love herb. love you, guy. >> we have strong retail sales. >> yes. >> what is really behind the numbers and how much can we trust them? >> strong number force january. but january doesn't matter that much when you are looking at retail. small percentage of the year and a lot of sales from clearance items. noting in that we love to see because there are lower margins. so that profit probably isn't going to follow through as much as if it was spring. brand new full priced merchandise. so we saw some of the retailers offering earnings guidance. but not by a lot which suggests a lot of sales fuelled by clearance and people buying winter clothes because guess what, it is cold. and it wasn't earlier. >> like brian rummaging around in clearance bins, right?

>> can i see that. >> yeah. stacey, cnbc contributor, would you agree with that? ? even though nones were good, we can't take this as an indicator as to what future months will agree with. >> i agree, it is a clearance month. if we have learned anything, we have confirmed the fact that retailers have done a great job of transitioning full priced sales to december into january and training the consumer. even target told us today this is a company that typically doesn't do a lot of promotions during holiday. so you can't really read into this. >> from a -- i'm a last guy stacey to talk or inquire about fashion. i'm lucky if i shower, all right? >> that makes three of us. >> courtney and mandy weigh about each of my legs soaking

wet. but this, i call it the french sailor problem, because if people like me wear horizontal stripes, looks like i should be in a tennis match with a camera under my side. is this a fashion crunch that will hurt sales? >> as i wrote in a note yesterday, my sister gave me two pieces of good advice as a teenager. never wear horizontal stripes or clothes that reflect light. there is a lot of that going on this spring. i'm brave today by wearing my stripes. but you're seeing that in stores. >> i love that. not just horizontal but all over the place. >> all over the place to confuse you. but i'm not standing up, so its it's okay. >> will retailers be left with inventory? are they going to be left with bargain bins we can rummage around in with maxy dresses in stripes and pant loon suites and everything in stripes? >> yeah. i think you see the fashion out there interpreted by everybody from gap to zara to mark jacobs

to oscar. it is all over the place. the question is, can the average woman pull this off? my answer to that is probably not. and you really don't want to. it is a big risk. so a lot of people are worried about tough comparisons going into spring. we had a very early spring last year. so that's the first problem. and on top of that, i'm worried about how are women going to wear horizontal stripes. >> caribbean street line. >> a bunch of jail birds. >> maybe you can hang out with the guy in the pantaloon suit. jacques, 1890. >> it's coming back. >> mark my words. you heard it here first. >> a very daring trend. >> thank you. >> thanks, stacey. >> coming up, five companies that we found that have a lot more cash as a percentage of their business than even apple. >> and speaking of that fruit company, just hit a huge

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coming up on closing bell, if you think the housing come back is for real. think again. president reagan's former budget director explains why he is warning of a new emerging housing bubble. speak of bubbles, jim rogers says the bond bubble is bursting and he is now shorting u.s. treasuries. we will find out what he is betting on. and we will have instant analysis on earnings coming up tonight from linkedin, coin star and hasboro. we look forward to seeing you from post nine at the new york stock exchange for the all important last hour of trading. brian? >> bill, thank you very much. this morning on squawk box, david einhorn said he is suing apple. he wants them to pay out more of air that mash of cash. but are they the best target? more than $137 billion, many companies out there have a greater amount of cash as percentage of their assets that

apple and our great team here at cnbc dug out. five companies with the highest percentage of cash and short term assets, on the books, as percent of the overall business. you have your pen ready? no no, really, do have you it ready? 3 million in cash short term investments. linear technology. 1.3 billion. about 67.5% of total assets. analog devices. notice the trend? semi conductor and tech companies? 3.9 billion equalling just under 70%. verisign 1.6 billion in cash. dwarfed by apple but 74% of their asset base and shockingly, surprisingly, the big winner, priceline. 4.7 billion in cash and short term investments. 75.1% of the total assets. almost in a way, mandy, if you

buy stock -- and i'm not advocating buying priceline. that's not my job. >> you are getting it cheap. >> three fourths of the stock price is effectively cash o or short term invef vestments. >> are these the real cash cows? are they plugging up the s&p is the question, right? joining us is eric marshall from hodges capital management. eric, great to have you with us today. you snow, we have made a lot here at cnbc that so many companies have been hoarding their cash. if they are reluctant to get off the big cash pile, do we need to see activism or maybe even lawsuits, like what is launched today by david einhorn, to coerce them? >> possibly. at the hodges funds we have spent the last few years studying thousands of companies.

there is only so much they can do. they can reinvest in the business, make acquisitions, return money to shareholders or end up wasting or stealing the money app and the longer it sits there on the balance sheet, earning a return below their cost to capital, you erode shareholder value and ultimately you become more susceptible to the last two options. >> is there a down side, eric, to cash? one of the reasons we want to show our viewers this is that apple gets all of the attention. google too. microsoft to a point. look at these companies. midsize companies, all this cash. is there a benefit or down side in some ways? >> there are some businesses where maybe you're in a very cyclical industry where having the strategic cash position makes sense because at the bottom of a cycle it gives you the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities that maybe your competitors don't have. but in the case that you're

sitting on very large comment of cash earning returns on that cash close to zero, you are really eroding shareholders value by earning zero return on the cash and in most cases better off going in and buying back stock which is in a lot of cases creative to earnings per share or simply returning that to share holders in the form after dividend. >> we have to leave it there. but thank you very much for joining us. we have to say, we met with microsoft just yesterday, i believe. they have what, 52% of cash. as a percentage of total assets and he said they are one company that needs it address this. >> yes. they should buy holland. >> or us australia. >> that's a bubble. >> we are bringing you "say what"? florida senator marco rubio has all kinds ever fired up today about apple. he tweets quote, why do i have to get so many different charges for apple? i'm edging closer to samsung

with each passing day. >> you complain about the charges, when you were on the west coast and looking at the new product and you said, charges will be a problem. >> i think for people like myself who have used apple for a long time. you have your travel kit, home, desk, whatever, then force to you buy another charger at 25 to 30 bucks a pop. a lot of people said, i will just wait until i have to. >> speak of apple, almost ten years. but 25 billion songs have been purchased on itunes. what was the 25 billionth download? monkey tones. 15,000 songs a minute are downloaded. there are 26 million songs to choose from p.. that is like over a million dollars an hour they are making.

>> isn't it a shame that's the song that hit the milestone? >> it sounds like monkeys banging on drums. >> awful. >> we belly up to the bar next, for a 12,000, yes, $12,000 cocktail. >> one step that may make the case on facebook. that's coming up. safety technologyvanced like an available heads-up display on the 2013 lexus gs. there's no going back. on the 2013 lexus gs. all stations come over to mithis is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it.

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facebook shares up 7% this year, outpacing the s&p 500 so far, but check this out. a new pew study says 61% of users have taken a break from the social networking site, some for months at a time and in its annual report facebook admitting some users are moving to other sites, so is this a sign of trouble ahead? julia boorstin is in town so we'll milk her for all she is as well as the managing editor at tech cobuffalo. when we spoke about this earlier, are you nuts? facebook is booming. you think we're insane. >> i have a number for you. 618 million. that was the average -- >> not 517. >> 618 million, the dale average user number in december, so that means every day in december you had hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of millions of people going on facebook, now more on their mobile devices, a lot on the desktop. that number says to me i don't care if other people are taking breaks for months at a time, there's still a lot of people using this service. >> one thing that really worried about this pew research, and roy, i'll bring you in on this one is that the biggest erosion is in younger users, not people like us with a lot on our plate. younger users. i thought it was the younger users who lived on facebook. >> definitely. the numbers were 42% between the ages of 18-29. that's the demographic that you're wanting to get at. >> right. >> it could be changes in terms of the advertising model that they are using, changes on their mobile platform, but these are long-term issues that they can take care of, so to me it's not too much of a concern because facebook can always adjust their model. they can adjust their apps and how people interact. >> how? >> well, i think they are seeing a lot of people go to insta ggr.

>> if they see people migrating elsewhere they buy it up? >> innovate and make their service more appealing. a lot of talk about tumbler, and roy, be curious to hear your thoughts. tumbler is a hot product, making its mobile service more like tumbler. that's where the potential for innovation it. >> when you look at facebook's timeline layout, feels a lot more like a website rather than a feed of information like twitter does, so there's a little bit more robustness t.integrates instagram pretty seamlessly and video more seamlessly so it keeps users in your ecosystem without having to jump to youtube or another social network. >> roy and julia, sit tight for a second here. we've got some breaking news. the john brennan confirmation hearing was broken up because apparently massive amounts of protesters gained entrance to the hearing or at least the building and disrupted the confirmation hearing. that's video. that's live video actually.

you can see it's sort of the wrapping up. what we understand is, and i don't know if we'll have video or not, but we heard was that a large amount, don't know how many, of protesters came in. they disrupted and they actually succeeded which was clearly their goal in breaking up the confirmation hearing of john brennan as director of the cia. >> okay. if we hear more on this, we're going to find out more, as much as we can and bring it to you. meantime, a very quick break, but do stay with us right here on "street signs." ♪ [ indistinct shouting ] [ male announcer ] time and sales data. split-second stats. [ indistinct shouting ] ♪ it's so close to the options floor... [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ] ...you'll bust your brain box. ♪ all on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. ♪

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barbie, yes, that's barbie, is selling her malibu beach house for their 25 million. the blond bombshell is listing her beach front home on the website trulia. it's not real, of course, but if it were, it would be over 8,000 square feet, three stories high, one bedroom and one bath and pink everything. everything, pink crown molding, pink elevator and pink granite tops in the kitchen and pink marble flooring in the master bedroom. the listing price once again, brian, $25 million. >> maybe one of the ecklstone daughters can buy that. >> sounds perfect for them. >> yesterday we showed you melbourne, australia is the fourth most expensive in the world. here's proof. a bar tendner melbourne has create what had he thinks is the world's most expensive cocktail

called the winston, darling, made with cognac valued at about $6,200 per shot. "downton abbey," this is not. >> it is a cognac, i should add, from 1788. kings have sucked on that cognac. >> but if it was 1788 in australia it would have been convicts. >> pretty much when australia was founded by white man. >> all right. >> thank you very much for watching "street signs," everybody. >> "closing bell" is coming up next. hi, everybody. good afternoon. welcome to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo at the new york stock exchange. this market trying to mount a comeback once again after being down more than 100 points actually. >> 132 i think it was to be exact. i'm bill griffith. we'll see if we can mount a comeback like yesterday. as maria pointed out, not nearly as bad as yesterday just a couple hours ago.

major hours on track to have the first losing week of the year. down fractions on all three major averages so we have to get something going today and tomorrow. >> we'll find out how big investors are allocating capital on today's big show. jim rogers, the legendary investor bullish on the stock, not been bullish on the stock but very bullish on commodities and one area he likes a lot. liked that area for many years. >> yes, he has. what made him a legend. don't miss that interview. also, could housing be part of what drags the market lower? a lot of people are saying there's a new bubble fast building in the housing market in many parts of the country. among them, former reagan budget director david stockman of he'll be here sounding that alarm in a few minutes. >> let's check the markets as we approach the final stretch with the dow jones industrial average, as you can see, bouncing from the lows which were ahead of noontime, down about 3-4-4 points on the industrial average, a third of a percent, 13,942.

nasdaq chart pattern, can you see we're still down, down about 13 points, so off of the lows. s&p 500, similar chart pattern there with a decline on the session of just about four points, now sitting just about at 1500. >> in today's closing bell exchange, daryl jones from hedge risk management and quinton crosby and bill mcveil from turner investments and our own rick santelli. welcome, folks. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> you've been a bit skeptical of this market. you're mindful of the sequester that still looms in washington. >> absolutely. >> and you feel this market is pretty much ignoring that right now. >> well, of course, you wouldn't be at these levels if the market were discounting it completely. i mean, it can happen. it could take away from gdp and make markets nervous and when markets get nervous about growth, they sell off. >> are you positioning yourself as if the sequester were going to happen, as if we'll get the massive spending cuts that could kick in in march?

>> we've been cautious and are telling clients to diversify and also to protect to the downside and get defensive and have quality in the portfolio because if there's a big selloff, quality will hold up just a little bit better. >> quality in terms of large cap multi-national, quality snams what you're talking about? >> quality names across the board, even though in high yield it's been digging, digging down. we've been saying try to stick to quality. >> what about small caps? quality, you finding there in small caps, and do you think large caps have to move higher for small caps to actually do the same? >> i mean, small caps have done great here. over the past few weeks, past year, and do i think that the market is not fully discounted in the sequester. i mean, we worked through the fiscal cliff pretty well. we've worked through the debt ceiling pretty well, but when it comes to the sequester i think you've got a real problem here. the republicans might have leverage. obama doesn't seem to be ready to deal with that, and i don't know if the market is